Aurizon loses Graincorp freight contract, shares down 20 per cent

AURIZON’S bad run has continued with the loss of a major grain haulage contract.

As the freight company continues to deal with the fallout from its strategy on the central Queensland coal network, it was also this week advised by GrainCorp that it would not renew its contract.

“GrainCorp has advised Aurizon that it has committed their Queensland grain haulage volumes to another carrier at the expiration of Aurizon’s current contract in November 2019.

“Aurizon provided a highly-competitive offer to GrainCorp to continue hauling their grain task from central-west and southwest Queensland.

“As a valued customer, we remain focused on safety and customer service in the delivery of GrainCorp’s product for the remainder of the contract period.”

Aurizon has lost the grain hauling contract with GrainCorp.Aurizon hauled about 750,000 tonnes for GrainCorp in 2016/17, but it has been a lower harvest this year.

It follows a report released by the Queensland Competition Authority in which it distanced itself from Aurizon’s strategy on the central Queensland coal network.

Aurizon has maintained that its strategy, to effectively reduce the number of trains that can get to port through changes to its maintenance schedule, was in response to a draft decision by the QCA.

But QCA said that it did not prescribe that Aurizon Network change its maintenance program, or the operations of its maintenance practices.

It also said it did not agree with Aurizon’s characterisation that the QCA would not revisit issues if new information became available.

Aurizon’s changes could cost the coal industry about $4 billion a year, but Aurizon has said it has no option because the QCA ruling has slashed about $1 billion from its revenue on the Central Queensland coal network and that a final ruling from the QCA would be backdated to July 2017.